They’d been hurtling toward each other since they were born, and yet, she felt this moment was wholly their own.
"Kiton, I’m in love with you."
He shifted, forcing her to sit up. He cupped her cheeks, eyes fond. "I love you so much, Vesperin Vox."
His lips met hers. She melted as she found herself beneath him. His leg parted her thighs. Her simple nightgown slipped off her shoulders until it was off entirely. She was bare from the waist up. His harness and chest plates came off, then his coat.
When he rolled down her undergarment and his bare hands pressed between her legs, feeling how wet she was, she gasped, flinching.
Her fingers dug into his bare hip; his clothes had long been discarded.
"Are you a virgin?" he whispered against her temples.
"No," she forced out through pale lips. "M-my godmother, she wanted me to help with intelligence gathering. Men are loose-lipped after they’ve been pleased." She shivered from remembered disgust.
All the hands that had touched her, all the ways she’d used her body.
Vesperin felt Kiton draw away subtly, and her thighs tightened around his hips, keeping him lodged against her. She felt the press of his cock against her entrance. She forced herself to endure it,wanting thistoo much to let him go.
"I never wanted them to touch me," Vesperin said when he still didn’t speak, "but I thought that I was doing something good by helping."
She tucked her face against his chest, unable to look him in the eyes.
"I’m so sorry you felt forced into that. I don’t want it to be like that with us, Rin."
Vesperin had never heard her name shortened like that. It was something sweet, delicate. She found she liked it.
"You lead, and I follow. If you want to sleep, we will," he said quietly to her.
"I don’t want to sleep. I want you tonight. But not… all the way. Not everything. I want to feel you. I want to feel alive with you."
She didn’t say why she felt so hurried. The fighting had grown more violent. She was afraid for him every time he left. She wanted to suck up every moment they had together, in fear that one day it would be their last.
But if she gave him everything tonight, what if that was goodbye? So she’d hold onto this one thing.
If they’d found each other once, they could do it again—in their next life.
Vesperin tried not to think of that. For now, tonight, they had each other.
Kiton nodded and kissed the space between her brows. "We can do that, Rin. We are alive—together."
They didn’t speak any longer, only his soft murmurs spoken over her flushed skin, as his mouth traveled down to her breasts. He licked and sucked her nipples into his mouth, tongue laving over them, and when she was trembling and on edge—because no one had touched her like this before, with her pleasure in mind—he moved lower, down her stomach, between her thighs.
She wasn’t quite the shy girl she’d been a few years ago, but no man had touched her like this. Her legs closed, and he kissed her knees and upper thighs until they fell open once more.
When his mouth descended to her core, she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled him away. "Wait. What are you doing?"
He looked up at her from between her legs, and the sight was sinfully decadent. "I want to taste you. Is that okay, Rin?"
Trembling, she nodded—and he finally pressed his mouth to her dripping heat.
She was undone beneath his lips.
When she was spent, he crawled up the line of her body to press his lips to hers. She tasted herself on them and hummed at the subtle note of her arousal.
"I love you," he whispered, and they fell asleep like that, curled together.
In the early hours, before the sun was up, he kissed her forehead and extricated himself from her. She leaned into the warm spot left on the sheets from his body, one hand reaching for him. He hadn’t asked anything of her in return for bringing her to climax; it made her want to please him even more.
